Hmm im kinda torn here. I fully understand why people wouldn’t want a timer, lots of players don’t like being rushed and it also works against a lot of class designs. on the other side I really don’t want it to turn into boring trivial content that feels like I need to spend hours in.
I enjoy a challenge from content and I really don’t want it to be super easy at the higher levels so im hoping they can make it hard enough to actually kill players not geared enough for the level. Obviously some players will stack the odds in there favor and spend an insane amount of time waiting for CDs, not sure how to stop that from happening without a timer.
My main concern with adding a timer is that it severely caps the amount of time you can spend with this content per week since they have already confirmed it will run on a currency to enter much like vessels for horrific visions. This would be fine if this wasn’t the only major playable content that is being released with SLs. I don’t really consider covenants as end game content, after these two things what else is there really. I think raids/M+ then a bit of covenant dailies followed by as much Torghast as you want is enough to keep most people busy and enjoying the content.
I understand the desire to keep players moving, and I understand that pushing floors you couldn’t otherwise push by waiting for major CDs on every pull would be a garbage experience that feels required. I absolutely agree with the intention to eliminate the incentive to do that.
I think incentivizing the player to play in this way, rather than penalizing them for taking their time, is a better approach.
Some possibilities:
Spawn a “treasure goblin” on some floors that casts a 2 minute spell to open a portal. When the cast completes and the portal opens, the “treasure goblin” (and any loot/anima he was carrying) disappears.
Spawn additional vendor items on the Broker if your clear time for all floors since the last Broker is below some threshold.
Post a publicly visible timed leaderboard. Award titles based on leaderboard position. Strip the titles when that position is lost. This has precedent for MoP and WoD CMs.
Award cosmetic unlocks (transmog, mounts) for completing certain floor milestones under a certain time limit.
Even if you decide it is better to use the stick rather than the carrot, there are better ways than a timer:
Give high floor enemies the ability to dispel major CDs, thus removing any benefit from waiting for them.
Give the player a limit of charges on select CDs, e.g. Bloodlust, Lay on Hands, Divine Shield, Shield Wall, etc.
At high floors, scale the enemies on the next floor based on how long you took to clear the previous floor. For example, if you manage to just barely clear Floor 100 after waiting 10 minutes for Bloodlust on every pull, Floor 101 enemies will be so unreasonably difficult as to completely stop your progress.
Sticking a timer on it is easy, but far from the best option, and would actively make this content harder to enjoy for a portion of the playerbase.
Ya idk, some classes passively rely on CD burst damage as a major part of their kit while others have weaker CDs with better consistent damage, you would have to rework all of that.
It seems a little strange to make the levels ahead easier if your proving the content is already to easy by flying through it. the reverse being if you struggle but get through the next level is impossible doesn’t seem like great design either in the long run. id like to see a different solution also I just think some of the options require a lot of work they don’t have time for right now.
We used to go slow and take our time to prep in the past. In the past it was normal and people had the ability to wait a bitt. We never used to get punished for this behavior and suddenly now we do. If we want to take our time we are now un-worthy of rewards.
It’s Prego Vs Grandma’s home made sauce. Both make darn good sauce…why are you taking Grandama’s rewards?
Well there you go, m+ is fine the way it is. You just need to get better. Removing time in m+ is a guarantee win eventually you will finish the dungeon and get easy rewards. No ty.
That isn’t remotely how floors work. Some have multiple bosses in the first room. Some have no boss. Some have multiple brutal patrols that will require CDs. Some have a few basic trash pulls and a single floor boss.
Locking out CDs except for a few pre-determined encounters where Blizz arbitrarily decides they are allowed is not compatible with the basic idea of a procedurally generated dungeon.
My thinking would be to only scale it harder for obscenely slow clears (multiple hours on a single floor), and only for very high floors. I would never make floor 101 easier than floor 100 because you cleared floor 100 really fast, but if you take several hours to clear floor 100 because you waited literally 10 minutes between every pull for Bloodlust, I have no problem with the first enemy on floor 101 oneshotting you as a means of telling you that you are clearly not ready to progress at that level.
There is no firm release date, Blizz literally has as much time as they want to make it right. Given the choice between releasing “on time” with major problems, and releasing “late” with these issues firmly addressed in beta, I’d take the later release a hundred times over.
Not true. In BC, Wotlk, and especially in Cata, heroics were a thing the whole expansion, especially if you were new, returning, or on an alt, as dungeons were introduced in those expansions as the gear catch-up mechanic. Don’t forget dungeons were also used for tabards/rep.
It would be very odd if dungeons were only run at the start of an expansion, seeing as we used to get more dungeons through patches.
I was specifically talking about people who had been there all expansion raiding. If you want to bring in everyone then every piece of content is used all expansion every expansion.
As a raider though, you never touched dungeons outside of maybe one a day.
Again, dungeons like ZA and ZG and Endtime (just from Cata!) were for players that had been playing all expansion.
As a raider during those 3 expansions (and MoP), my entire guild touched those dungeons all week every week during those expansions. Especially BC, seeing as it had a whole progression through dungeons to unlock raids (remember tuning?).
To be honest if it gets to the point where you need to pop a hero for every pack of trash I would think the boss of that floor would more then likely kill you quickly enough.
So poping hero for every trash pull would simply prolong your own agony until the floor boss off’s you for the needed amount of times.
Simply put, if your popen hero for trash “there’s your sign!” to get up and leave. I don’t think reasoned people would consider it a strategy, only the stubbern.
So this whole argument currently exists because people are admiting they too stubbern to take the hint’s to leave.
